“Today marks a major milestone for the automotive industry as well as Better Place,” Shai Agassi said as he unveiled the company’s battery swap system in Yokohama. “For nearly a century, the automotive industry has been inextricably tied to oil. Today we are demonstrating a new path forward.” The $500,000 station can replace a dead battery and get you back on the road in less time than it takes to fill your gas tank.

As we’ve covered in a number of posts, Better Place has raised a remarkable $200+ million in funding and partnered with governments and utilities to develop the necessary infrastructure and technology to make the electric vehicle a viable alternative to conventional (gas-guzzling) cars. The issues of a battery (lifespan, replacing, range…) remain a massive challenge in the wide scale integration of the Better Place model.

For more, check out Chuck Squatriglia’s piece for Wired.

A new experimental community on the outskirts of Freiburg, Germany is getting some attention for thinking outside the box, I mean car. As Elizabeth Rosenthal writes in her piece in the NY Times, the town of Vauban is completely “car-free”- “except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community.” Car ownership is allowed, but residents can only park their cars in two large garages at the edge of the development, “where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.”

Rosenthal continues,

As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called “smart planning.”

more…

Thule, Swedish-based makers of car rack systems, has launched an impressive 318-kilowatt solar array on the roof of its Connecticut facility.

The array, which consists of over 1,800 solar panels, will offset about 26% of the energy used at Thule’s Seymour manufacturing and office facility.

“If you think of our 26% offset in electricity in terms of products, it is the same as saying that every carrier in the bicycle product group is now made with solar power,” said Tripp Wyckoff, Thule’s vice president of marketing, sales and service.

Two Sweden-related posts in as many days! Swedes are on a roll!